Cold and Hard
by Elana
Summary: Vignette. Newborn Luke cries, while ObiWan contemplates bitter thoughts.


Cold and Hard

The remote archaeological outpost was woefully unprepared to deal with the needs of human newborns, but the synthesis unit had managed to produce an adequate nutrient solution, and a pair of drawers from a storage cabinet padded with some surplus clothing would do for bassinets. The girl had sucked down her feeding with single-minded purpose, filled the station with her piercing shrieks for a quarter hour, and then fallen into a deep sleep. The boy, though, had barely drunk at all. He kept turning away from the improvised bottle, shaking his head and twisting it to root futilely at the cylindrical chest of the droid that held him. He cried in quiet, shuddering sobs that went on and on, hour after hour, defying every attempt the droid, with inhuman patience, made to try and sooth him.

To Obi-Wan's ears the child's cries grew more forlorn and despairing as the night advanced. He told himself he should stay away, that the droids were far better able to deal with the fretful baby than he was, but nowhere could he completely escape those weak, heartbroken wails. He lay, unable to sleep, listening, the sound scraping the open wounds of his heart, as irritating and impossible to ignore as the screech of metal on metal.

Finally he rose and went to the dimly lit room where the droid tended the babies. Standing in the door, he watched its ineffectual efforts for a few minutes before reaching a decision.

"I'll take over." The droid nodded compliance, moving to hand the child to him. "No, put him in his bed." Obediently the droid laid the baby down and left the room. Obi-Wan pulled a chair up next to the makeshift crib and sat, staring down at the tiny form whose red face was scrunched in misery, fists clenched and flailing at the air.

_I know who you're crying for, and she won't come. You want the soft warmth of your mother's arms and breast, not the cold arms of a droid or the hard walls of that box you lie in._

_But it's a hard, cold universe you've been born into, little Luke. You're going to have to get used to it. Lie there and cry until you understand that no one is going to answer you. No one is going to help you._

Resting his head in his hands, Obi-Wan shut his eyes to block out the sight of the fragile, wretched babe, orphaned so brutally almost before his life could begin.

_As cold as your mother's body as it lies wrapped in its makeshift shroud, waiting until we can carry it back to her homeworld._

_As hard as metal fingers digging into burning sand._

Obi-Wan rose, and paced the room, unable to be still any longer. The click of his boot heels on the floor punctuated the ceaseless rise and fall of the baby's despondent sobs.

_As hard as the stiff body of a child, killed by a lightsaber thrust._

_As cold as the flickering blue image of a brother turned murderer._

At the window he paused, and gazed out at the bleak landscape, lit only by the harsh glitter of distant stars.

_As cold as the yellow glare in his eyes as he fought me. _

_As hard as the grip of my lightsaber in my hand as I cut him in pieces._

He strove desperately to find the Force, to draw its calm into himself, to release the bitterness that burned in his throat, but he could not concentrate, not with that maddening sound cutting into and through him, until it seemed to radiate from a point in the precise center of his own skull.

_As cold as the controls of her ship under my fingers. _

_As hard as my heart as I flew away from that world, leaving him behind._

The cries continued, thin and weak, hopeless, but persistent, adamantly refusing to abandon their protest. They grated in Obi-Wan's ears until he could not relax, could not think, could not focus on anything but his desperate need to stop the infuriating sound.

_As hard and cold as the monster your father became._

_As hard and cold as the darkness that consumed him._

Before he knew what he was doing, Obi-Wan whirled and snatched the child up, filled with the urge to shake him, slap him, smother him, do whatever it took to end the torment of listening to his anguish. But the unexpected weight in his hands stopped him, and he blinked, staring at Luke's tightly closed eyes and wide-open mouth. Then he shook his head, and collapsed into the chair, pulling the baby close to his chest.

To his surprise, Luke's sobs eased somewhat, and the baby's head bobbed against his shoulder.

_I don't have what you need, Luke. No one does, not anymore. You will just have to learn to live in the cold, hard universe that is all you have left. And so will I._

Little shudders still ran through the infant's body, and his breaths came in ragged gasps between long cries that trailed away to silence as each breath ran out. Moved by an instinct he did not understand, Obi-Wan cradled Luke in one arm and offered the little finger of his other hand for the baby to suck.

Luke accepted the offered finger eagerly, his body finally relaxing against Obi-Wan's. The ball of the Jedi's finger fit neatly into the arch of the baby's palate, and the baby's tongue moved in rhythmic waves against his fingernail. Luke sucked fiercely at first, then more slowly, as his eyes drifted closed. Within moments he was asleep.

Obi-Wan knew he should lay the baby back down, but when he went to withdraw his finger Luke's body stiffened in protest, so he allowed it to remain where it was. And besides, the soft, warm weight felt so good in his arms. Slowly Obi-Wan slouched in the chair, and his head slumped, and he slept.

They stayed there, sharing an oasis of warmth and softness, all through the night, until Yoda found them there in the hard, cold light of morning.


End file.
